In the economically developed countries, it is common for people to execute transactions by computer, frequently without the involvement of another person. For example, one can order merchandise by computer, transfer bank funds, examine account data for one's credit card, and so on.
However, in undertaking these transactions, one quickly realizes that different transactions, undertaken with different organizations, require one to deal with different computer interfaces. Further, even for a given type of transaction, undertaken with a single organization, the type of computer interface can be drastically different, depending on the communication medium utilized.
For example, purchasing shares of corporate stock from a broker can be done over the Internet, using a computer. The same purchase can be undertaken by telephone, wherein the purchaser identifies the purchases to be made using DTMF (Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency) signals issued by key-presses on the telephone. Two different interfaces are used for the same transaction.
Further, those interfaces can be expected to change, as time progresses.
Therefore, the proliferation of different computer interfaces, together with the fact that these different interfaces will change over time, are seen as inefficiencies in an economic system where efficiency should be a primary goal. Because of the proliferation, people are required to spend time learning a vast array of different interfaces, in order to interact with other parties in commercial transactions.